Problem Statement for Renumbering IPv6 Hosts with Static Addresses in Enterprise Networks
RFC 6866

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                      B. Carpenter
Request for Comments: 6866                             Univ. of Auckland
Category: Informational                                         S. Jiang
ISSN: 2070-1721                            Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
                                                           February 2013

              Problem Statement for Renumbering IPv6 Hosts
              with Static Addresses in Enterprise Networks

Abstract

   This document analyses the problems of updating the IPv6 addresses of
   hosts in enterprise networks that, for operational reasons, require
   static addresses.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6866.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Carpenter & Jiang             Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 6866              Renumbering Static Addresses         February 2013

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Analysis ........................................................3
      2.1. Static Addresses Imply Static Prefixes .....................3
      2.2. Other Hosts Need Literal Address ...........................4
      2.3. Static Server Addresses ....................................5
      2.4. Static Virtual Machine Addresses ...........................6
      2.5. Asset Management and Security Tracing ......................6
      2.6. Primitive Software Licensing ...............................7
      2.7. Network Elements ...........................................7
      2.8. Access Control Lists .......................................7
      2.9. Management Aspects .........................................8
   3. Summary of Problem Statement ....................................8
   4. Security Considerations .........................................9
   5. Acknowledgements ...............................................10
   6. Informative References .........................................10

1.  Introduction

   A problem that is frequently mentioned in discussions of renumbering
   enterprise networks [RFC5887] [RFC6879] [GAP-ANALYSIS] is that of
   statically assigned addresses.  The scope of the present document is
   to analyse the problems caused for enterprise networks during
   renumbering by static addresses and to identify related gaps in
   existing technology.  Some aspects also apply to small office and
   home networks, but these are not the intended scope of the document.

   A static address can be defined as an IP address that is intended by
   the network manager to remain constant over a long period of time,
   possibly many years, regardless of system restarts or any other
   unpredictable events.  Static addressing often implies manual address
   assignment, including manual preparation of configuration scripts.
   An implication of hosts having static addresses is that subnets must
   have static prefixes, which also requires analysis.

   In a sense, the issue of static addresses is a result of history.  As
   discussed in Section 3.2 of [RFC6250], various properties of IP
   addresses that have long been assumed by programmers and operators
   are no longer true today, although they were true when almost all
   addresses were manually assigned.  In some cases, the resulting
   operational difficulties are avoided by static addressing.

   Although static addressing is, in general, problematic for
   renumbering, hosts inside an enterprise may have static addresses for
   a number of operational reasons:

Carpenter & Jiang             Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 6866              Renumbering Static Addresses         February 2013